Chapter 435: She created this…

“That won’t be a problem,” said Pandora, stretching her arms lazily. “Everyone dies. Everyone reincarnates. The soul enters the cycle, takes a cosmic journey, sometimes returning as a lemur, sometimes as a demigod, and everything continues. Her soul just… joined the queue like everyone else.”

Vergil snorted. “Are you saying this is normal?”

“Normal isn’t the word,” Pandora twisted her wrist as if she didn’t want to commit to the definition. “But it’s common. The point is: the body is new, but the soul is recycled. And hers is old. Very old. Like… ‘before-the-first-words’ old.”

Seris, still typing runes and observing patterns on the screen, muttered without looking up:

“But if that’s true, a soul that powerful shouldn’t even be on this plane. Much less… in that body.”

“Exactly,” Pandora replied with a smile. “Her soul may not even be from this galaxy. Maybe not even from this universe. This here,” she pointed at Alice with her finger, “is an anomaly with capital letters and screaming in bold.”

Pandora walked over to Alice, who was watching her with wide, curious eyes, unaware of the danger she posed.

“But calm down,” said Pandora, smiling. “None of this means she’s a mistake. It just means… no one has any idea what might be hidden inside her.”

She then bent down in front of the girl, as if to tell her a secret… and gave her a gentle flick on the forehead.

Tec!

Alice fell backward like a doll, passing out instantly.

“DONE,” Pandora said loudly, snapping her fingers as if she had solved an arithmetic problem. “Now let me see something.”

Vergil took a step forward. “What was that?!”

“Relax, she just fell asleep. It was a magical blow. Highly specialized,” Pandora made a pompous gesture, like a doctor who knew what she was doing. “I do this all the time with restless demons.”

She gently took Alice’s little hand and closed her eyes.

“Hmm… yes, that’s right. There’s a seal here. A very old one. This kind of thing is… pre-time. A layer of magic that prevents the soul from remembering itself. Probably so as not to destroy the current body with too many memories.”

Morgana approached, intrigued. “Are you saying she was sealed on purpose?”

“Of course. If she remembers everything at once, the body burns. Typical powerful soul protection protocol. I’ve seen this before in… uh, two or three reincarnations of star dragons. One of them even exploded. It was hilarious.”

Pandora then snapped her fingers. Instantly, Alice woke up with a small sigh, blinking as if she had taken a nap.

“Hm?” she murmured. “What happened?”

“You just took a nap, dear,” Pandora smiled reassuringly.

“Alice,” she said, pointing to the wall, “can you open that magic for me, please?”

The girl looked hesitantly at Vergil, seeking confirmation. He nodded with a steady but calm look.

Alice stretched out her little hand and pointed to the runic stone wall beside her.

The runes reacted as if they were alive—lighting up in spirals as mana flowed out of Alice in gentle waves. A portal opened with an ethereal sound, a golden hum that seemed to hum an ancient melody. The air became lighter, brighter. As if space itself were opening up to another layer of existence.

The magic circle was perfect. A golden, pulsating vortex, effortless, without resistance. Stable.

Seris blinked several times. “That… is impossible. It’s much bigger than the last time she opened it… Not even an experienced mage would have enough mana to do something like this…”

“She didn’t open it. She just remembered how to do it,” said Pandora. “It’s like riding an astral bicycle. I opened her mana vessels, now she can use her entire current body.”

Alice looked at the portal in wonder.

“Let’s check something,” said Pandora, with an unusual gleam in her eyes. “Come on.”

She took the first step and entered the portal as if she were returning home. Vergil hesitated for a moment, then picked Alice up, holding her tight, and followed her. Morgana and Seris exchanged silent glances and soon followed.

The last thing to disappear into the vortex was the sound of Pandora murmuring excitedly:

“If I’m right, this is going to be… fun.”

As soon as the five crossed the portal, a slight distortion enveloped their bodies as if they were surrounded by warm water — and then, suddenly, everything became… quiet.

The group stepped onto a flat field that stretched as far as the eye could see. A green sea of tall grass rippled with the touch of a gentle breeze. There was no sound of animals, no rustling of dry leaves, no whispering of insects. Only the wind, rocking the distant hills under a perfect blue sky, dotted with clouds that looked like lazy brushstrokes from a patient artist.

Vergil was the first to speak, his voice almost a whisper:

“This place…”

He looked around, confused, as if he recognized something there, but didn’t know what.

“It looks like my mental world… But…” He narrowed his eyes. “Mine has fields of Red Spider Lilies. It’s a reflection of my pain, my contained fury. This one…”

He turned slowly, his eyes scanning the scene with military attention.

“This one is just… peace.”

Morgana looked at the ground carefully, as if afraid to step on and ruin something sacred. Seris knelt down and ran her fingers through the grass, watching how it bent gently under her touch.

Alice, still in Vergil’s arms, let out a small sigh. Her eyes were fixed on the sky, as if that place had always been inside her — and perhaps it had.

Pandora, on the other hand, froze.

Literally.

She stumbled, brought her hand to her throat, and gasped, as if she had seen a ghost, or worse—understood something she shouldn’t have.

“Impossible…” she whispered, her eyes wide, unblinking.

“Pandora?” Seris turned. “What is it?”

“This… this is the girl’s mental world,” Pandora murmured, almost without a voice. “But it’s… materialized. It has… gravity, atmosphere… physics. This isn’t an astral projection. This is real.”

Vergil narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘real’?”

“Real, real,” Pandora said, spinning on her own axis, looking around like someone who had just entered a forbidden temple. “This isn’t an illusion. This isn’t a dream field. This has… natural laws. It has its own logic. She created a plane of existence from her own inner world.”

Seris immediately stood up and began to conjure runes in the air. Lines of magical analysis appeared around the group, but they distorted slightly, as if something in this place refused to be scanned.

“Stable,” Seris muttered incredulously. “Complete. There are no ruptures… no flaws. Not even blind spots.”

“She shaped this with her soul,” Pandora added. “And no one does that. Not even gods do that with this level of stability. Not even I can maintain something like this for more than a few minutes without an external anchor.”

Vergil looked down at Alice, who was now stretching her little arm toward the sky, as if she wanted to touch the clouds.

“Did you do this, little one?” he asked softly.

Alice smiled. “This is where I dream, Daddy.”

Pandora staggered backward.

“She lives here in dreams,” she said, more to herself than to the others. “This plane is not just a mental reflection. It is a plane built to protect the soul. A dimensional refuge… inside a child.”

“I am a child! But I am a responsible child! I created the best world possible so I could spend more time with Daddy and Mommy without anyone interrupting us! RESPECT ME!” Alice yelled at Pandora.

“My God… it’s even worse than I thought…” Pandora staggered and almost fainted upon hearing that the little girl had created a real world to… have her father and mothers around…

Vergil looked at how Alice was…

“Well, I hope this doesn’t cause me too many problems…”